I just realized after all the blogs I went through….not much material made the cut here! Eclectic indeed? 🙂 You don’t want me to start posting filler stuff, do you?
TRAVEL
An absolutely gorgeous video from this guy who flies his plane around. MUST watch. Found at The Adventure Blog. Wow!
Did you know there was a beautiful plane crash memorial site in the middle of the Niger desert?Neither did I!
Ok, more Maho Beach extreme landings from Bored Panda. In the last video a girl gets blown away by a JetBlue jet engine!
More and faster wifi aboard Amtrak trains coming!
MILES/POINTS
Live from A Lounge did a Club Carlson survey and wrote “Is Club Carlson considering a program revamp?“. Many of these surveys do not come to fruition. But this one made me afraid, very afraid. Very interesting approach if it comes to pass. Maybe we should all look to burn them Club Carlson points in a bit more urgent fashion, shall we? I think the shoe will drop with Club Carlson like the others but maybe not this year.
ON MY MIND
The Friday interview at Million Mile Secrets was a doozie! First thing you see when you click on the new Free Travel Genius (OMG, another FTG!) is this “I created this website to explain to my friends and family how my wife and I have been able to travel the world for free.” Sure, we heard this one before buddy. And a bunch of credit card links are waiting for you of course! And a whole bunch of just one sentence replies. Well at least Daraius is not getting excited anymore by these interviews with renowned miles experts; we sure aren’t!! I usually do not provide links in this section but I found the comments VERY entertaining, have at it! Please have some standards for the bloggers you interview, this one just did not serve your readers at all and is not helping the MMS brand!
I never figured out the obsession with Channel 9. At Star Mega DO Dos, Lufthansa hosted us and I participated in a focus group about inflight entertainment. I suggested to kill Channel 9 and fellow participants almost physically harmed me. I guess they never understood my sense of humor:-)
ODDZ & ENDZ
Unbelievable pictures of wildlife from the National Geographic Traveler photo contest.
The MMS stuff just throws me. There are loads of decent people he could do (me for a start!), just work down hack.travel if necessary.
Is the only interviewing people who are clearly worse than MMS and thus not risking reader drain?!
We all make mistakes:-)
Some do it over and over and over #shithappens 🙂
MMS slunk (not sunk) to a new low. I guess off to Grand Wailea was higher priority? But I’m not really bothered – if it keeps him from using arrows and pictures of every decent deal so that the most ignorant/lazy/stupid nitwits can figure it out, all the better.
Grand Wailea had amazing swimming pools:-)
Best MMS post evar.
Indeed
I joined American Airlines’ AAdvantage on Thursday March 30, 1989 at the ripe age of 13 and never looked back. WOW!!! ONLY A GENIUS WOULD DO THAT
My kids had miles in their accounts before they were even born #justsaying 🙂
In defense of the Friday Interview it is a great way for smaller blogs to get exposure. As a former interview subject the traffic at my blog has been up ever since my interview. I feel like he is helping out the little people which I appreciate. On the other hand, as a mile and point enthusiast I wish he was more selective in his choices for interview subjects. Friday’s interview had no value. I would like to think the interview would highlight a blog people may find useful, like my blog if you are interested in visiting Portland, Oregon or Susan’s blog if you are interested in working seasonal jobs and traveling. Interviewing a dude who just has a bunch of links to credit cards was a disappointment. Thank god the comments rescued that post. Which proves once again MMS always wins. Dude is a genius.
Sure, now hopefully next weeks interviewee would have more CC links. That would be even more genius.
I think it is a combination of having easy content and giving back to the little bloggers by giving them exposure. But there must be some MINIMUM Standards!
We agree that the comments saved that post. Which leads me to believe if bloggers to be interviewed have to sign a waiver by MMS “I do not hold MMS responsible for ANY comment that shows up here, you are entering dangerous territory and you must be able to take it” or something like that;-)
Oh, I am not scared. I just don’t have the time. I will do it one day…when I have my cc links all lined for ya all LOL
I never laughed at comments ( 5/17 MMS interview)s o hard since the time MMS taught us how to cut the TSA security line.
http://millionmilesecrets.com/2012/11/29/how-to-skip-airport-security-lines/
now that there is some pretty darn funny/angry comments, never to be topped. Check it out 228 comments that will amuse.
ha ha nice reminder of the snake oil salesmanship that is embedded within this guy! Some comments are hilarious…
What a genius move!!!
I have no problem with this since he disclosed his procedure. This is a capitalist society, so I don’t blame him for trying to make money. Let me pick on some random bloggers and we will go from there ….
Oops formatting issue ..
<.Scott>What a genius move!!!<./Scott>
<.TBB>I have no problem with this since he disclosed his procedure. This is a capitalist society, so I don’t blame him for trying to make money. Let me pick on some random bloggers and we will go from there<./TBB>
This is all way too entertaining indeed! Instead of the wrong “Travel for Free” it should be “Laugh for Free”.
Love it!
“I will naturally be paying with my Chase Freedom card as the 5x points they are paying as a bonus now is much better than the standard 2x points my Chase Sapphire card I normally use at restaurants is. For many “chain” restaurants I can still use my INK BOLD and INK PLUS to visit the gift card section and get 5x points that way also!” – Deltapoints
I really don’t know what to say about this – it is so needy, so pathetic. (guess where the links were in the above text).
Every time I read DP I shake my head wondering what excuses my eyes will see to push yet another credit card. Unbelievable!
Oh, I forgot, we are not angry:-)
“Use your points – I hear Charon doesn’t accept them”……………..NOW I GOT TO WASTE MY TIME WITH A GOOGLE SEARCH, is he just trying to impress us all with knowledge of Greek Mythology. Or is he just a Douche?
When you find out please let us know!
Darius is usually pretty good about responding to all comments. But he hasn’t done so to any of the Friday interview responses (including some that asked him questions).
What’s the deal D?
Maybe he just lets the interviewees go at it themselves. Having said that where is…
At least there are no toilet pictures from Maui (MMS), Buzz you are changing the Blogisphere everyday. You are the Genius!
sometimes I think I am one amazing idiot for not getting aboard the affiliate cc link choo choo train:-)
Maybe the Genius should change the name of his site to LIST OF CREDIT CARDS.
LOVE your handle Bro!
I have a serious question for you George. How did the new FTG get an interview with MMS? Don’t you think that MMS would at least had to take a look at his site before the interview? Is MMS playing us, is he the genius? No seriously did Daraius look at his site and think this was worthwhile to share with his readers? What is your valued and educated opinion? The world is waiting breathlessly for your response.
Clearly MMS doesn’t actually want his readers visiting that site, for fear they might use the Free Travel “Genius” credit card links instead of his.
I suspect that he’s simply mentally committed himself to doing a weekly interview. Plus it’s easy filler, since he has stock questions and someone else provides answers. There’s been a LOT of filler up on MMS lately.
Sure, there are other sites. He could interview THIS ONE (hah – he doesn’t want his customers being exposed to the angries here, eh?).
But FTG2 is truly scraping the bottom of the barrel.
What I have learned so far in blogging is that creating quality content consistently is EXTREMELY hard! This is why you see filler posts left and right (interviews, trip reports broken up in million installments, etc). Filling a Friday slot with these interviews is easy. Stock questions, all done by email. I was offered that and I asked if the questions can be a little, you know, more fun and challenging? I believe the offer still stands but I just have not had the time to do it. I will do it one day if I continue this blogging thing. To me is all fun so far…if it stops being fun I will just stop doing this.
I do not know if he looked at that site. I hope he did. But I have noticed that interviewees get going BIG time on the credit cards RIGHT AFTER they do the interview. You know “welcome MMS or New York Times readers”…so maybe MMS did not see what we all saw when we clicked on that site! Which was quite horrific, I still have nightmares about it (not really, just saying).
You should ask Daraius guys, not me!
Considering he only seems to update his blog once every few months, I highly doubt he updated it before the interview